The scene: Tenente Colonello Bartolomeo Colonoscopi is lying on a makeshift bed as a medical orderly tries to defrost the bandages around his stomache sufficiently to change the dressing. Enter a corporal in rags walking with the aid of a stick.
Corporal: They've gone! The bastards have buggered off and left us.
Colonoscopi: Who's gone?
Corporal: Everybody who could walk, run or crawl. They pissed off in the middle of the night!
He breaks down and starts to cry.
Colonoscopi: (encouragingly) Don't cry, your eyeballs will freeze over. After all it could be worse.
Corporal: How?
Colonscopi: Well, the village could be burning down. Or the Russians could be attacking us.
Smoke drifts in under the door, sounds of Russian voices cheering off.
Corporal: I was getting to that.
So this is ASL Scenario AP18, Village of the Damned from the Action Pack "Few Returned". Here in the post-Stalingrad debacle the few functioning remnants of the Italian 8th Army are staggering through the snow in the increasingly vain hope of getting behind the new Axis lines before rampaging mobs of Soviets stomp them into the earth. To lighten their load they simply abandoned their sick, wounded and disinterested in a village where they spent the night. These left behinds weren't lonely for long as a vengeful horde of Soviets turned up to have a pointed conversation on the moral and ethical implications of invading somebody else's country. Axis forces (to give them a name they don't deserve) consist of one elite Italian squad, three first line squads, three conscript squads plus two German squads and a half squad. Four of the Italian and both German squads are designated as "walking wounded". The best Italian officer (a 9-2) is similarly wounded and as such counts as an 8-1. For support weapons this mob has a single Italian lmg. Aaron Cleavin will command this Axis partnering made flesh. I will lead the Soviets who have a 9-1 officer (plus a couple of other less impressive leaders) a pair of elite squads, eight first line squads, a medium machine gun a couple of light machine guns and a tank. Not a particularly impressive tank but the best anti tank weapon the Axis have is their sharpened fingernails. The village they are hiding in also happens to be on fire. So this should be easy right? Swift victory to Neil. not really any point in doing an AAR. If you believe that you obviously haven't read any of my other AARs.
Aaron had set up a string of concealed units (or dummies) guarding the main street through the village and some obviously German (although the fading on my counters was making it difficult to tell) units in the rear. My plan had the virtue of simplicity. This was possibly its only virtue so forgive me if I make a big deal about it. The bulk of my force would attack astride the east-west road looking to hit and break through what appeared to be his toughest defences. In the north my tank would shepherd two and a half squads (plus a 6+1 leader just for laughs) towards a useful hedge where hopefully they could winkle out the rearmost Germans (wrong). I also sent a couple of squads towards the centre shielded by the smoke drifting across the battlefield.
Over on the right things started off well, making good use of my 6+1 I armoured assaulted a pair of squads forward behind the hedge and prepared to let loose a hail of musketry on the German defenders. This is all they did for the remainder of the game. I don't think the German squad ever so much as pinned. I rolled the tank around into Aaron's rear area hoping to deny some rout paths but I had forgotten one fundamental truth. For denied rout paths to be of any use you actually have to break your opponents. For quite a while this just didn't happen.
At my main attack point things entered a comfortable routine. I would move troops forward to where I could fire on Aaron's defenders. Aaron's defenders would then break them. And repeat. I sent a half squad skipping out on the left to try and draw some fire, successfully as he was broken immediately. Unfortunately this didn't translate to an advantage anywhere else. This is pretty much how it went for the first few turns. I just didn't seem to be able to build up any force that could actually inflict damage on Aaron's troops. The only thing keeping me in the game was the fact that my Soviets showed quite a predilection for self rallying. Unfortunately they showed a similar predilection for breaking first.
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| About two turns in but it really could have been taken at any point in the game |
Eventually my flanking halfsquad self rallied and scored my only unalloyed success in the game when it plunged into CC with an Italian squad, ambushed it and killed it outright. For a moment I felt hope. Unfortunately the only other unit of mine doing any damage was my sniper. I killed Aaron's sniper outright in two attacks. Incidentally in the picture above a AR is doing service as a sniper as I seem to have mislaid by Soviet one.
Painfully I cleared out the bulk of his dummies which meant that I at least had the advantage of firing at real troops but it made little difference. Finally around turn four I did manage to break his 9-2, lmg, squad combo and broke another squad or two elsewhere but it was too late. In desperation I charged an elite squad across the street, it had to withstand a 2-2 shot but eight moral hey. A NMC resulted in a boxcars which ended that particular movement and my last hopes. With reckless movement and much good luck I may have been able to mop up the rest of his troops but the German squad sitting in the building on the right was unassailable.
In retrospect I made two major mistakes. Firstly I was far too nervous with my tank. For some reason I got obssessed with street fighting and losing the thing in CC so I kept it back out of harms way. However the 6+2 firepower it could put down was incapable of inflicting harm. I should have used point blank fire and VBM to help my troops forward. The other mistake was not throwing everything at Aaron from the get go. Instead I allowed my initial casualties to persuade me along the lines of caution when I really didn't have the time to creep about.
We finished the game quickly so we turned it around with Aaron playing the Soviets. I conceded on turn two and I see no reason to write an AAR about that. I can see that my preparation for ASLOK is proceeding along familiar lines.
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